The Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, the US Federal Geographic Data Committee, GeoConnections Canada, and the Geoide Network are organizing this specialist workshop at the premises of the Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy with the following objectives:

review what we know thus far on SDI Return on Investment (RoI)/cost-benefit studies outcomes. Are there consistent findings emerging? are there major discrepancies? how far can we generalize findings (i.e. importance of context on outcomes)? Are there major gaps that need to be filled?

Methodologies adopted: what are they? what seems to work well and what does not. How can we learn from the experiences we have to progress the field?What implicit and explicit assumptions are made? Are they reasonable in the light of current experience? Any lesson to be learned from RoI studies in other infrastructure projects (e-gov, telecoms, utilities, transport)? What is special about SDI compared to these other experiences?

The workshop will comprise of 20-25 invited experts with specific experience in RoI/Cost-benefit studies and SDi impact assessment. The expected outcomes will include the development of a portfolio of international case-studies in this under-researched field, and work towards a common methodology to deploy in future studies at different levels of jurisdiction (local/regional/ national) which will enable robust comparative assessments to be made.

The workshop will include summary/presentations of existing studies, analysis of the key dimensions to be analyzed, and small group break-outs to come to assessment and recommendations. Where commercial or policy confidentiality is at stake, presenters are encouraged to focus on methodological issues and generic lessons to be learned from the studies that can help advance the field.

The workshop will start at 9 a.m. on 12th January and close at 17.00 on the 13th.